{"id":910,"date":"2018-03-28T18:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=910"},"modified":"2018-03-28T18:02:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T18:02:52","slug":"which-one-is-the-star-the-wine-or-the-winery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=910","title":{"rendered":"Which One Is the Star, the Wine or the Winery?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In all the years that we have been visiting Napa Valley for wine tasting, a lot has changed.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say whether it has been, overall, for better or worse.\u00a0 In our opinion, the wines are far improved over what was available in the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s.\u00a0 There is more diversity, more top-quality wine makers and (memory may be playing tricks here) the same wines from the same producers are better today that they were then.\u00a0 More expensive too, to be sure.<\/p>\n

But Power Tasting<\/em> isn\u2019t about wine, it\u2019s about the experience of wine tasting.\u00a0 In that regard, tasting in Napa Valley today is far different than back in the \u201cgood old days\u201d.\u00a0 In those days, tastings were usually in the barrel room, with nothing of architectural, cultural or sartorial interest.\u00a0 There are no \u201ctwo barrels and a plank\u201d wineries left in Napa Valley although there are still some in other wine making sectors of California.<\/p>\n

We certainly enjoy sipping wine in a comfortable setting, with a sleek wooden bar and some tasteful artwork on the walls.\u00a0 More broadly, we prefer wine tasting in a comfortable atmosphere, with attractive surroundings and knowledgeable servers.\u00a0 These are the types of wineries we seek out when we are traveling and there are many of them in Napa Valley.\u00a0 Those old days weren\u2019t always so good; a handsome tasting room is better than a barn, capacious glasses that let us savor the aromas of the wines we are drinking are better than the teensy glasses we had then and wine educators are more interesting to chat with than farmhands.<\/p>\n

Sometime around the late 90\u2019s or the early part of this century, two things happened.\u00a0 The pioneer wine makers who established Napa Valley wines as we know them today were bought up by international corporations and these companies discovered that they could profit handsomely by making Napa Valley into Disneyland for adults.\u00a0 And so they began to build what we term \u201cNapa Palaces\u201d where the objective was to provide an experience independent of the wines being served<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Inglenook winery.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some of these drew on Napa\u2019s wonderful history.\u00a0 For example, the Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s\u00a0 Inglenook, Beringer<\/a> and Chateau Montelena are housed in 19th<\/sup> century buildings that have been restored to their former glory.\u00a0 They would be worth visiting even if there were no wine to be tasted.\u00a0 And the fact that all three of these do make excellent wines certainly doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, wineries like Castello Amoroso, Darioush and even the newly constructed Stag\u2019s Leap were built<\/em> to be tourist attractions.\u00a0 Regardless of the quality of the wines \u2013 and some of these are very good \u2013 visitors are unlikely to go away with the thought of the wine foremost in their minds.\u00a0 They\u2019ll remember the architecture, the shopping, the snobbishness and oh, yes, they tasted some wine too.<\/p>\n

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Castello Amoroso.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

To be honest, there are some of these palaces we enjoy.\u00a0 For example, Domaine Carneros<\/a> is a faux<\/em> French ch\u00e2teau (which may be excused by the fact that it is owned by a real French ch\u00e2teau).\u00a0 We love their sparkling wines and Pinot Noirs.\u00a0 But for the most part, we enjoy wineries where tasting their products is given prominence.\u00a0 Pretty surroundings should add to the wine tasting experience, not overwhelm it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In all the years that we have been visiting Napa Valley for wine tasting, a lot has changed.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say whether it has been, overall, for better or worse.\u00a0 In our opinion, the wines are far improved over what was available in the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s.\u00a0 There is more diversity, more top-quality wine … Continue reading Which One Is the Star, the Wine or the Winery?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}